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by Crysania
Summary: Tumblr prompt: With Rumple back from New York and taking back his shop, the Charmings go to him for help with their new/old enemies. Unfortunately, the only type of payment Rumple will accept are the ones concerning Belle. And when Belle herself comes to make a deal to help her friend Will Scarlet reunite with his true love Anastasia, he demands a higher price: a kiss.


**A/N: This story marks over 400k words of fic written for the Rumbelle fandom. I just want to thank EVERYONE who has ever read or commented on my fics. It means so much! I've never written this much and it's you folks who keep me going!**

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><p>He comes back in the middle of the night with no fanfare. It's quiet, dark. The town is sleeping, just as he expected it to be. There is no one there to mark is arrival, no waiting arms to fall into, no Belle to welcome him home and tell him it was all a terrible mistake and she loves him. There is no one there for him, no one who misses him, no one to forgive him for his terrible transgressions.<p>

Yet he comes back anyway. Because she's there. Somewhere.

And perhaps that is enough.

At least, he hopes it is. Because that's all he has. Well, he has his power, but what is power without someone to protect? He can feel the pull of his dagger, somewhere in town, but he doesn't know where it is and he's not even sure he _wants_ to know where it is.

He never wants to see the blasted thing again. It has been his greatest weakness, weighing him down when he wants to move toward the light, always whispering whispering whispering, _take the dark path Rumplestiltskin, it's the only one for you_.

And he does.

Time and time again.

He fights it. Always. But it's never enough.

His house stands abandoned, there on the outskirts of town. He's not been gone long but he can see the signs of neglect. The flowers are going wild, there's mail tossed unceremoniously on the porch, the windows look dirty and the lights are all off. Belle has moved out, moved on. He doesn't know where to, but he suspects she's living above the library again, as she did during their first big breakup.

She's not in his shop either and that shows equal signs of neglect. She's been there, of course, removed everything that was hers.

She's left the cup though. He finds it on that first night back sitting out on a table in the back. It's alone. Whole, but alone. He's never felt more lonely in the moments that he curls up on the cot in the back of his shop and holds that chilled porcelain in his hands. He wants to crush it in his hands, crush it like his love has been destroyed, by _his own hands_. But he cannot and so he curls up that night, and the nights that come after, with it tucked safely to his chest, eyes closed tight against the memories of his fall at the town line, of seeing Belle walk away, of knowing he is the only one to blame.

He does not blame her.

He cannot blame her.

How could he, for she is perfection and light and he is all that is dark and cold and alone? She was that one tiny flicker and it's gone out.

It doesn't take long for the town to get wind that he's back. He doesn't leave his pawnshop. He can't leave his pawnshop. The house has too many memories. The shop has them too, but none more so than the house, days of simple breakfasts, curling up on the couch to read, nights of passion and whispered sweet nothings. He cannot go back there.

He should not be back in the town at all.

But he's there and it's not long before he sees people standing outside his pawnshop. Some look angry. Some look scared. But it's only the brave Prince Charming who actually pushes the door open and comes inside.

Even though it's turned to "Closed" these days. Permanently closed. He wants to curl up with his misery and pain and know that he's close to Belle, just across town, even if he does not dare set foot in the library.

Or even outside the pawnshop. He hasn't left since he arrived.

"Gold?" He hears Charming's voice almost as soon as the door closes, the bells ringing merrily. He both loves and hates the sound. He remembers them ringing the times Belle rushed in, happy to see him, happy to be reunited. He remembers them ringing when others came, to interrupt, to bother, to accuse.

Now he deserves the accusations.

But when he steps out from the back, pushing the curtain aside, moving tentatively, he doesn't find a mob with pitchforks hoping to take him down. He finds Charming. Standing alone.

"It's dangerous to face the beast in his lair," Rumplestiltskin says and his voice is dark, so dark. It's not a voice Charming has heard in a very long time. It's probably one he's never wanted to hear again.

Charming just stands there, arms crossed over his chest. Rumplestiltskin steps out around the corner, leans on his cane. He won't heal his ankle. Not this time. It's a penance, a pain that he will continue to carry with him. He hasn't used magic since he came back.

He can't bear to, too many reminders of what it has done to him, what it has done to _her_.

Finally, he sighs. "What do you want?" He's tired. So very tired. He wants to curl back up on his cot and sleep and dream. Dreams are easier. In dreams he can be happy.

No…that's not even true of his dreams. He's _content_ in his dreams. The most he can expect out of this Gods forsaken life.

"Maleficent has been freed," is all Charming says.

"Ah and so you think _I_ did it."

"It makes sense," Charming responds with. "You come back. She appears." He lets the words hang, does not speak the obvious.

"I had nothing to do with that," he responds with and for once he's honest. Though he suspects that Ursula and Cruella, the two dark witches who helped him come back _might_ have. But he won't say that. Some things are still played close to the vest, years of not trusting not so easy to overcome.

Charming just watches him for a moment and then finally speaks. "We need to find where she's gone to ground."

"Ah of course, you have need of my _abilities_." The last is said on a sneer. Does no one remember what he once did for them? He's just the person who has the things they need. He loses his life, gets enslaved, patently in the _wrong_ order, and he's just the guy with the magic.

"You have a locator spell."

"So does Regina," he shoots back and he doesn't mean the words to sound quite so biting. He sighs, runs a hand over his brow. "Right…of course. You have something of hers?"

"We do," Charming confirms. Rumplestiltskin doesn't want to know what or how they even got ahold of it. No need getting too embroiled with the Charmings and their drama. They'll drag him in anyway, but he can at least stay on the outskirts as long as possible.

Rumplestiltskin produces the potion, quickly and easily. Everything is just where he left it, perhaps a sad testament to Belle's disinterest in returning to the shop. She had tended it while he was enslaved, cared for it lovingly in his absence. Now it's a cold and dark place, devoid of her light and love and caring touch. It speaks volumes.

Charming reaches for it and without thinking, Rumplestiltskin pulls it back and out of his reach.

"It's not something for nothing, right?" Charming says and he can almost _hear_ the disappoint in his voice.

"Indeed," he says, but there's not much of the usual bite to the word.

"What do you want?" Charming leans forward slightly. It's reminiscent of a time long gone past. _Leave me alone_. But no, that's not right. They _will_, but not because he wants it anymore. He wants to belong. He knows he never will. He'll never belong anywhere and he never has. When Rumplestiltskin doesn't respond Charming presses ahead. "A favor?"

He gives a sad smile and nods. Charming turns to go. But he can't let him. He knows what favor he needs. Without even thinking about it, he steps forward and grabs the man's forearm.

Charming stops suddenly and turns around to look at the smaller man. And Rumplestiltskin feels small next to Charming. All brash muscle and height, dwarfing his slight for.m "What?" Charming asks.

"No. No favor. I need information." The words come out quickly and Charming just raises his eyebrows and watches him. Rumplestiltskin removes his hand from Charming and looks away. He can't watch him as he speaks. He can't see the pity or the hatred or hear the curses. "Belle," he says and he hates how small his voice is.

"I can't help you get her back." Rumplestiltskin spares him a slight glance. "Not this time."

"No." He takes a deep, shuddering breath. "How…how is she?"

There's a pause and he doesn't dare look at Charming. Does he even know? She wasn't exactly friends with him or Snow back before it all happened. He can't imagine she is now, but he does hope, and desperately so, that the town has taken his Belle under their wing. They always shunned her…_always_….because of her association with him. She claimed it didn't bother her, but he knew otherwise.

"She's…well…she's getting by I guess. She's opened the library up. The kids all love her."

Rumplestiltskin nods. "Good…good then…Is she…happy?" The words are hard to choke out. He wants to know. He doesn't want to know. He wants to crawl into the back of his shop and surround himself with the blankets he remembers her last wrapped up in. If he inhales deeply, he can imagine they smell like her still.

Charming doesn't answer right away. But then he sighs and even he can't look at Rumplestiltskin when he says the word. "No."

As Charming walks out the door, Rumplestiltskin feels himself crumple, his knees giving out, even the cane cannot hold him up. He doesn't know what he expected. He wants her happy, but he wants to be with her, and he was so very afraid that she would be miserable. Not without him. But because of what he's done to her.

He crawls to the back room. He does not have the strength to stand, and pulls himself up on the cot. He'll die there, if his magic will allow him, there in the last place he remembers her happy and whole.

* * *

><p>Two days…he's spent two days holed up in his shop, mostly sleeping in the back room, curled up, arms wrapped around his knees. He's been at the front though, peering out, hoping to catch sight of Belle.<p>

Maybe that would be enough.

Though he knows that will never be the case.

There would never be enough, not even if he spent his entire immortal life with Belle at his side.

But it's all he has. Or would have, if he saw her once. He wonders if she's holed up in the library the same way he is in the pawnshop. He wonders if she has friends, goes out, or if she stays inside, glued to her books and mourning her loss as heavily as he mourns his.

He wonders if she knows he's back, if she finds some new way out of the library that doesn't take her past the pawnshop, if she's frightened of retaliation or some of his darkness leaching out and snagging her.

He won't approach her.

But he can watch from afar. If she'll ever allow that much.

He's sitting in the front of the shop watching when he sees Snow White making her way toward the shop. He hopes she'll pass by, but really that's probably a hope in vain, as much in vain as hoping he'll see Belle.

Snow steps into the shop and lets out a small sound of surprise when she sees him sitting there, off to the side. He says nothing, waits for her response. What is there to say really?

"I had to see for myself," Snow finally says.

"Did you now?" He cannot help the words as they escape his mouth, dark, sarcastic. He falls so easily back into his old persona that for a moment he can almost pretend things were as they once were. That he hasn't fallen even lower in their eyes. They once considered him beneath them, he knows this much. But now he's the lowest of the low, a spineless snake that would have taken everything from them…_everything_...in the pursuit of the power he needed.

Snow White says nothing, just stands in the entranceway and watches him. Her eyes are steady and he doesn't see the sympathy there he's expected. She shows all the sympathy for Regina, the woman who tried to kill her, her daughter, her family, _everything_, multiple times. The woman who slaughtered villages to find Snow White is somehow higher in her esteem than the man, the _imp_, who once told her how to break the Queen's curse, who sent her errant husband-to-be after her, who saved them all from his father's curse.

He sighs, finally. She's not going to say anything. "Is there something you need, dearie?" He wants to snap, to tell her to get out of his shop, leave him to his antiques and misery. But he doesn't. He can't.

He doesn't even know why.

"We found where Maleficent has been holed up," Snow White says at long last.

"I see." He has crossed swords, so to speak, many times with the fallen fairy. He has no wish to do so again. He still remembers her gloating as she ordered Belle's death. He won't forget that. _Ever_.

Snow narrows her eyes on him and takes another step into the shop. She's brave, imprudently so, just like that fool of a husband she has. Neither backs down. Even when they should.

"Well, if that's all…"

"You knew," she interrupts him with. Her eyes are still narrowed. She knows.

"I suspected."

Snow takes a deep breath and her head cocks slightly to the side, like she's a goddamned Cocker Spaniel and he's just asked her if she wants to go for a walk. "Why?" she finally says.

One small word.

But it opens up a whole new world for him.

He offers a crooked grin, not the maniacal one he might have back in their homeland, but a crooked one that was half smile, half grimace. Worry hides there somewhere, but he banishes it as the act settles onto his shoulders. "It's not something for nothing, dearie."

"Forget it," Snow says and turns on her heels. She's had enough of dealing with him over the years, he supposes. And now, when he's returned after his banishment, made his way back to watch the woman he loves from afar, to grovel at her feet if only she would allow so much, Snow White is done dealing with him.

"No, no wait," he says and he cannot keep the desperation out of his voice, cannot keep from grasping uselessly at the Princess-turned-Mayor's arm. Snow whirls around and he releases her, holds his hands up. _I will not harm you_. _Just please…please_…he is moments away from saying the words out loud, but stops. There are some things he cannot come back from. "It's only a simple thing I want."

Simple…so simple…so tiny. But it would mean so much. His eyes are wide as Snow gives him an assessing look he wasn't sure she was capable of. She's taking his measure. He often forgets just how savvy the former bandit could be. Much more so than her sometimes obtuse husband. He does not give Snow White enough credit.

"What do you want?"

"You'll consider?" He hates the way the words sound coming from his lips. Desperate. Frightened. Needy. But Snow nods. "There is a scarf…" He lets the words hang, not sure how to go on.

"You need a scarf? Can't you just magic one up?"

"No," he says and the word is harsh, forced out through a face tight with pain. Snow jumps back slightly. "Not just any scarf."

He sees the moment understanding dawns, sees the way her eyebrows rise and her mouth opens slightly, gaping like a fish.

He could turn her into a fish if he wanted. But he won't. She is useful to him, this one.

"You want Belle's scarf." It's a statement. There is no question there. She understands. Completely. She has been separated from her love before, no doubt wishing then that she had _something_ of his to get her through that time.

He simply stares at her, eyes wide. His nod is almost imperceptible.

There is no need to ask questions. Snow departs then and somehow he knows that she'll come through. She's a born leader, though too often she's allowed her soft heart to sway her leadership. She'll come through because she needs to know, because it matters to the town.

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><p>And indeed she does. In amazing time, really. It's only been a couple hours since he saw her. A couple hours that he spends standing at the doorway of the shop, a small man looking out at the world he is not allowed to be a part of. He keeps to the shadows but this day he is there watching. People pass by, see him, shudder. It's nothing he's not used to and yet it stings anyway.<p>

He sees Snow White long before she sees him, watches as she walks carefully toward his shop. She looks around her and he knows, somehow, that she's hoping not to be seen. No one trusts him.

Not that they did before.

But the mistrust is worn on their sleeves now. They used to hide it. He could see it, somewhere in the back of their eyes. But now it's obvious in the way everyone gives his shop a wide berth.

But not Snow White. Or Prince Charming for that matter. They still come. And this time Snow comes bearing a scarf. It's long, made of a delicate grey wool. He had bought it for her their first winter together. She had no coat, no gloves or hat or scarf. He had promised to take care of her, protect her, and even though they had been at odds to some degree, trying to work their way toward normal, he had made sure she was safe and warm in her little library apartment.

He wonders if she's living there now. Snow White no doubt knows. Prince Charming probably knows. Hell, Hook probably knows. After her daring rescue of the damned pirate, he was sure the man would apologize to his Belle. If he didn't have Emma…well…better not to think of that. He had Emma and despite his wishing that pirate would simply fall off the face of the earth, he was thankful he had not set eyes on his Belle as he did his first wife.

"I have it," Snow White says as she rushes into his shop, nearly barreling him over. The last few steps to his shop were always the hardest, always the ones that people had to push themselves to complete. Snow is no different, though she's a defiant one, not easily cowed by the likes of him, ancient sorcerer or not.

She's eyes the cane. And she wonders. Does he even _have_ magic? Or has it completely slipped from his grasp?

He reaches out to grasp it, but Snow pulls it back. Two can play at his game and he allows a feral smile to cross his face for a moment. "You should be looking for Urusla and Cruella," he says in answer to her unspoken question.

Snow's eyes nearly cross for a moment. "Ursula? The sea witch?"

"The very same."

"What does she have to do with Maleficent?" He waits for some sort of comprehension to dawn and sees the moment it does. "You brought her here. Ursula, I mean. And Cruella?"

"Animal magic, dearie. Nasty stuff." He shudders. Even he finds her magic distasteful and he's done many horrible things with his over the years. The less they know about Cruella's proclivities, the better frankly. "And yes. That was my doing, I'm afraid. A necessity, you see."

"You couldn't get back on your own." He sees her eying the cane once more.

"No," he answers simply. He won't tell her the truth of himself, whether he has his magic or not. Let them wonder. Let them worry. His life is not their concern and only in the moments that he can find out something about Belle do they matter to him.

Snow White takes a deep breath. "Where are they hiding?" And he knows _she_ knows.

"Well, dearie…"

"It will cost me, I know." She looks tired in that moment. She's been dealing with him a long time, knows his ways. But it won't cost much. It never has, not for the Charmings. A lock of hair, a cloak, a way out of the forest that the Evil Queen sent him too. He's never requested much from them and yet still they fought the payment. "What do you want?"

"Now we're talking," he answers with and smiles, quiet and feral and so very desperate.

* * *

><p>He can always rely on the Charmings to continue to need his services. And they do. They come to him several times. For potions, for spells, for information. They'll never leave him alone as long as he is in the town. His shop may be closed, but the Charmings barge in. He can use them. He <em>does<em> use them.

"A picture," he says to the prince when he's blathering on about needing some counter spell to something Maleficent has done to them. Just a picture. A new one. He needs some evidence that his love is alive, well. He needs to see her smile.

He hasn't seen her. Not yet. Though he watches every day out the window of his pawn shop. The library is open but he never sees Belle leave it. He never even sees her locking up, instead watching Henry close it up one day, Snow another. Belle is either living in the apartment and refusing to go out or she's going out the back way, purposely avoiding the pawn shop that sits close to the entrance at the front of the library.

Charming brings him a picture, one he's taken on his cell phone himself. Belle sitting in a booth at Granny's. He remembers sitting there with her, dates from times gone past when things were better, when _they_ were better. She's not smiling though and there are dark circles under her eyes.

"She hasn't been sleeping," Rumplestiltskin murmurs when Charming hands the photo over to him.

"No," the other man confirms.

Rumplestiltskin wanders into the back of his shop and rifles through the things there. When he returns, Charming hasn't moved from where he left him. He almost hoped he did. "Here," he says and hands the taller man the potion.

"What is it?"

"Forgetting potion." It's hard to get the words out and his voice breaks on the last syllable.

"Forgetting…"

"She will never even remember having met me." He's been working on the potion ever since he found some of her hair in the scarf Snow brought him. There are some things that are just easier. She can wake up from her nightmare finally, go about her life, and if she spares a look, a kind thought for the old pawnbroker she's never met, then that will be enough for him.

"Like the one you gave to Snow."

Rumplestiltskin nods. "Exactly."

Charming turns the potion over a few times in hand. "She won't take it."

"You can't be certain of that," he says quickly. Why wouldn't she, after all? Surely she'd want to let that part of her life go.

Charming just shakes his head and leaves the shop. But at least he takes the potion with him. It's a chance, at least, a chance for Belle to start over. It's more than most people get and he hopes she'll recognize the magnitude of the gift he's given her.

* * *

><p>Charming was right, of course. She refuses to take the potion. He returns with it three days later and shakes his head. Rumplestiltskin takes it back without a comment and the prince leaves immediately. He needs nothing that day.<p>

But he does in the days following that need other things.

At night Rumplestiltskin curls up on the cot and holds close all the things that remind him of his Belle. Well, not _his_ Belle now.

She's someone else's.

Not that she belongs to anyone. No one decides her fate but her and so she has. Snow White has told her she's seen her drinking at the Rabbit Hole with a young man. Will, she says his name is. Some young bloke from Wonderland who seems to have taken quite the shine to Belle. He walks her home at night, though Snow has never seen him go into the library with her during the evening hours.

But he knows. It was only a matter of time after all. Only a matter of her realizing she could do better, _will_ do better, and to put her memories of him aside to move on.

It appears she doesn't need that forgetting potion after all.

She's already forgotten.

It's for the best, he tells himself and crawls into his cot, her scarf wrapped around his neck, the perfume fading, her hairbrush clutched in his hand. He holds it close to his nose, smelling the shampoo she uses, remembering how he used to hold her close and lean into her to breath that particular scent in. Her coat is draped over him, her picture clutched near his heart. He sleeps surrounded by her, engulfed by her.

And he wakes each morning with a crick in his neck and a feeling of emptiness clawing at his insides.

It's clawing at him when he hears the bell to his shop ring. Charming again. Or Snow White. He's not sure it really matters anymore. They're two sides of the same coin and they won't leave him to curl up and die in his shop. He picks up his cane and makes his slow halting way from the backroom to the front. "And just what can I do for you today, dearie?" he says as he pushes through the curtains that separate what has become his home from his place of business.

"Rumple."

He hears the voice before he sees her and his eyes shut. He doesn't expect this much pain and so staggers beneath the weight, gripping the handle of his cane tightly as he tries to right himself. His knees want to collapse, his ankle wants to crumble. He's afraid he'll be on his knees before her, begging…for what he doesn't even know anymore. He wants her love and her understanding, but he has neither. She has set him adrift.

"Belle," he finally manages to say and just her name from his lips makes him stumble. He can move no further forward as his eyes finally come to settle on her. She's thinner, the dark circles still beneath her eyes. She is bundled up, thick coat, wool stockings. It's cold out, but not as cold as all that. "You're cold," he murmurs and he wants to find something to wrap around her, something to keep her warm.

He cannot anymore. Cannot touch her. Can barely even look at her.

"You have my scarf," she responds with and he's almost sure he hears a bit of humor there behind the words.

"I…" He reaches up to touch the material that is still draped around his neck, looks away.

"I wondered where that had gone." Her voice sounds half grim, half amused and he is not quite sure how to take that.

"I…" he starts again, but the words will not come. What words can he say to her at this point anyway? What words would she accept, listen to? He turns away. "Is there something you need?"

He'll give her everything back if she asks. Let her see the pathetic hoard of her stuff that he sleeps with every night.

"I caught Snow when she broke into my apartment," she says. He glances at her briefly. She's holding an empty perfume bottle out toward him. "She says you wanted this."

"I did," he confirms. What else can he say? He wants something that smells of her. He can cast a spell, one of the few he would do these days, to preserve it so that he could live day in and day out surrounded by that particular smell, vanilla, roses, and something else, that reminds him of the woman he has lost to his own stupidity.

She sets it on the counter and pushes it toward him. He hesitates for a moment before retrieving it, cradling it carefully, turning and breathing in the scent for a moment. His voice is quiet when he speaks next. "What do you need?"

He can see her flinch out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps this is not the best start to reconnecting. If there is any sort of chance for that, really. He suspects not. She's stayed away, hidden from him. She won't even go out where he might be able to see her.

Did she fear him?

She saw the mask crumble, saw that beneath it all he was really the monster he had once told her he was. Does she fear his retaliation for what she's done?

"I…" And it's her turn to stutter, to be unable to get the words out. "I need help." She speaks as if every word is being forced from her. "My friend, Will…"

"Ah yes…your…_friend_," he cuts her off with. He can feel his heart stutter. The friend…the _man_…she's been spending time with.

"_Rumple_." He knows that tone of voice, knows it all too well. It says that she's disappointed with him, frustrated. He's heard it when he refuses to help the Charmings, when he says something snarky about David.

He sighs. "I'm glad you've…moved on." He waves a hand at the last. "I can have the marriage annulled. I'm sure no one would argue with that." The words come out fast. Pull the bandaid off quickly, it hurts less. She can be through with him with just a word.

"Rumple," she repeats and he cannot stop himself from looking up at her, meeting her eyes. "I need to find a way to get Will back to Wonderland."

His eyebrows raise just slightly. "Wonderland? Whatever for?" He cannot imagine why _anyone_ would want to go to that horrific place, though he supposes if that's where the boy is from it may make some sort of sense. Perhaps Belle would go with him, separating them by worlds again, allowing her to free herself of him completely.

"His true love is there," she says simply.

"His…" His brain won't quite process the information.

"Yes."

"So you're not…"

He's surprised to hear a light laugh come from her. "No."

Rumplestiltskin moves through the shop, touches the mirror in the corner lightly. "There are ways," he says and stops. Does he dare ask her for something in exchange? She isn't one of _them_, not the Charmings or Regina or even Emma. She's his _wife_, not someone to manipulate and ask for something in return.

But…

"It'll cost me," she says and he remembers how she always could seem to read his mind. He was always sure she would figure out what he was up to with the hat, with the fairies, with Hook. Even now he's sure she knew and chose to ignore it until she couldn't anymore.

He shakes his head, but even as he does, the word slips out of his mouth. "Yes." It's a mere whisper. He doesn't dare. _He doesn't dare_. And yet he does. Belle moves closer to him and he can almost catch a whiff of her perfume from _her_, not from the bottle that sits somewhere behind him on the counter.

"Name it," she says and leans just a tiny bit closer.

He feels his throat convulse, feels his mouth go dry. She's close. So close. He's never even imagined her setting foot in the pawnshop much less coming anywhere near the monster who broke her heart, the one who smashed it into tiny pieces and left it laying on the street at the outskirts of Storybrooke.

"Name it," she says again and he realizes that he can't even quite get the words out. What he wants is so simple. So small. So precious to him that he's afraid that if he asks, she'll walk out. Again.

His tongue comes out to run along dry, cracked lips and his voice is a mere croak when he finally does manage to say the words. "A kiss." And he flinches away, waiting for the slap, waiting the slam of the door.

It doesn't come.

He waits a moment longer.

Still nothing.

But she is silent before him and he doesn't dare look up to meet her eyes. And then he hears the click of her heels across the floor and her hands are on the lapels of his suit and he cannot help but look up and meet her eyes.

Blue and wide and so determined. That much has not changed in their time apart. Belle will always be the stronger one, everything he has always wished he could be and never could succeed at. She is no different now as she quickly searches his eyes for _something_. He does not know what. He doesn't know if he _wants_ to know what she is looking for.

Fear, panic, love, they all war inside of him and yet she seems to see a spark of something there. She nods, almost imperceptibly, and then she is pulling him toward her and her lips meet his and it is as if he has been granted some sort of salvation. If only for a moment.

For at least this one small moment in time she's wrapped around him and her lips are soft and her hands are in his hair and it's just like all those moments long ago. Or not so long ago. It feels like a lifetime ago that he last held her in his arms, that he last heard that soft sound in the back of her throat as her lips parted beneath his.

But there's a desperation here, born of lies and darkness, of banishment and a hero finally claiming her rightful place. He feels it crackle across his skin, a pattern of electricity that starts from where their lips meet and travels down his back, his arms. It's like a fire cascading through his body and when Belle finally draws back and he opens his eyes, he sees her smiling at him.

"What…" He's not quite sure what's happened, what's _still_ happening as he feels the electricity race through his system. He has access to his magic still. He can feel it, knows that he can still grasp it and manipulate it. It's not true love's kiss then. But still, it's _something_. And Belle is staring at him with _that look_ and he can't quite figure out if she's happy or angry or somewhere in between.

"I'm still angry with you," she says, almost in response to his unspoken question.

"Of course," he says quickly. But she's not letting him go, her hands still on his shoulders, her body still close to his. She hasn't set him adrift. Not yet.

He waits for that moment, for the moment she remembers he's the monster, the beast she never saw and finally does see. He's warned her. Any number of times. He's told her she would finally see him for who he really was.

But she's still here.

She shakes her head and reaches up to cup his face with her hand. "I am _still_ angry," she reiterates. He doesn't know what to say to that, doesn't know what she expects. And so he nods, stays silent. There's much he wants to say, much he _needs_ to say, but now is not the time.

"Is there a 'but' there?" he finally manages to ask and his voice is just a mere whisper. He's afraid of her answer. He's afraid of _everything_.

"There is." Her answer is simple and he breathes a sigh of relief, his hands gripping convulsively at her shoulders.

"And what…" He pauses there. The words are not coming easily, the air sucked out of his lungs before he can articulate them properly.

"You're mine." And there is a fierceness there, as if she's just remembered that despite it all, they are true love.

"I am," he confirms. "Always. Sweetheart, the gauntlet led to my greatest weakness. _You_ are not my greatest weakness. You are my strength." The words come out quickly, born of a desperation that threatens to choke him.

"We have so much to talk about," Belle says and there's a sadness there that he's seen lurking since she first stepped into the shop. Sadness, but strength. The strength that he has relied on too heavily these past years. Somehow he has to learn to stand alone. He's trying, but it's hard. And he's afraid. Always. Forever.

"We do?" He doesn't even know what she's after. He's hers forever, but he has freed her from both deals she's made with him. She is his servant no longer, has not been for almost as long as he can remember now. Was she _ever_ really his servant? She flitted around the castle with a feather duster but he can't ever quite remember her using it past the first week or two. And she can be released from being his wife, a step away, a clean break, if only she says the word. It will not be simple, not for him, but it will be easily done.

She nods, bites her lower lip in that way that shoots straight to his heart and groin. "We do," she confirms. When she steps away, her face wears a tentative smile. "Tonight perhaps? Dinner?" He's about to speak when she raises a hand. "Not at Granny's."

"Of course not." He knows what meeting there will do. Set the tongues to wagging, get them interrupted, probably more so now than ever. People will want to keep her from him. Rightly so, of course. He's sure they've offered her shelter, kept her safe, offered to hide her away from the monster who had returned to his pawnshop.

"The library?"

He squeezes her shoulders just a little bit tighter. "Are you sure?"

She nods, gives him a small smile. "Seven?" He can't say anything and so just stares. She slips from his grasp them, disappearing out the door of his shop like she was never there to start with. But he can feel her still, can smell her. He turns then, walks away from the door.

There is, apparently, a lady to woo.

And a life to change. He knows it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of mistakes. But she's given him a chance and it seems there's nothing for him to do now but take her up on it.


End file.
